Staking Facilities

Staking Facilities is a staking firm from Munich, Germany. It runs validators, the servers that check trades and help keep a blockchain safe. It is best known for one of the largest validators on Solana. You can stake SOL with it and earn rewards while the tokens stay in your own wallet.

The firm began in 2017 as Staking Facilities GmbH. It owns its servers and network links and does not rent from a cloud host. It calls itself "independent and bootstrapped", which means it has no outside backers. Its website showed more than $1 billion staked and a team of over 20 people in October 2026.

How Staking Facilities runs validators on its own hardware

Staking Facilities runs its validators on servers it owns, joined by its own network. A validator votes on each new block. Token holders lend it their stake and share the rewards it earns.

You keep hold of your tokens. When you stake SOL with Staking Facilities, the SOL sits in a stake account that your wallet controls. The firm never holds your keys.

Owning the gear is the main pitch. The website says the firm controls "every layer", from servers to more than 8,000 km of private fibre. Marinade's validator list places the main Solana node in Frankfurt. An older Solana Foundation feature on the firm said it used custom-built servers in a Tier 3+ data centre.

Staking Facilities also sells custom block building. That means it will tune how its validator fills blocks for a client. A trading desk might pay for this to get its trades in fast. The website aims this at funds and traders. It lists no prices or terms.

Solana validator commission, MEV rewards and Firedancer

The main Staking Facilities validator on Solana charges 0% commission on staking rewards. Wallets list it as "Staking Facilities | MEV 🔥". It has been live since September 2021.

It is also one of the biggest. In early October 2026 it held about 6.4 million SOL, per Marinade's page for the validator. A zero rate does not mean the validator keeps nothing. The zero covers the new SOL the network pays out to stakers. Validators also earn MEV tips and block rewards. These are extra sums paid by traders and by fees. Marinade put the validator's cut of all rewards at about 12% in October 2026. If you judge by the headline rate alone, you miss that part.

The validator runs Firedancer, a Solana client built by Jump Crypto. Marinade lists it with an add-on called Harmonic, which builds blocks. A client is the software a validator runs. Having more than one client in use makes the network harder to break with a single bug.

Staking Facilities also votes in Solana governance, and it votes with the stake you lend it. In August 2026 it said it voted yes on every proposal in Solana's first on-chain vote. One was the cut to new SOL issued. We covered how that vote ended. The firm said Solana was "overpaying" for safety, and that the change "might be rough on smaller validators".

The SuperteamDE public goods validator

Staking Facilities runs a second, smaller Solana validator with the German arm of Superteam. Its name is "SuperteamDE x Staking Facilities | Public Goods Validator". Its listing says it is "dedicated to funding public good projects and initiatives".

This one is not free. In October 2026 it charged 5% commission and 8% on MEV. It held close to 200,000 SOL, per QuickNode's staking list. The listing does not say who gets the money or how they are picked.

Solana Beach, the Solana Performance Hub and DoubleZero

Staking Facilities builds more for Solana than its own validators. Three things stand out.

Solana Beach is a Solana block explorer, a site where you can look up any wallet or trade. Staking Facilities made it in the network's early days. The Solana Foundation's feature called it the most used Solana explorer at the time.

The Solana Performance Hub is newer. Staking Facilities launched it on 6 July 2026. It is a shared site in Frankfurt for validators run by other teams. It offers fast servers and quick access to block data. A first group of validators got access at launch.

Staking Facilities also runs links for DoubleZero 2Z$0.033-0.4%, a private fibre network built for blockchains. On 9 July 2026 the firm said it had done so for a year. It then said it would close its Warsaw and Madrid sites and its Munich to Strasbourg link. It will focus on its Frankfurt hub.

Which networks does Staking Facilities support?

Staking Facilities listed six live networks on its website in October 2026. They are Solana, Ethereum, Sui, Monad, Chainlink and DoubleZero. The firm says it does not serve every chain. It picks ones it rates, then holds and stakes their tokens itself.

On Ethereum, the firm runs validators for Lido, a large staking pool. In July 2026 it said it would help with the move to Lido's Core Upgrade.

The list has changed over the years. Check the website before you assume a network is on it.

Staking Facilities Ventures and its $25M fund

Staking Facilities Ventures is the firm's venture arm. It launched in November 2023 with $25 million of the firm's own money. The aim was to back young teams on Solana and across Web3, Blockworks reported.

The firm was backing teams before the fund had a name. It joined the June 2022 funding round of Vybe Network, a Solana data firm, BetaKit reported. Obol, an Ethereum staking project, names it as a backer. So did Elusiv, the Solana privacy team that later became Arcium.

This matters to you as a staker in one way. A validator that owns stakes in projects on the same chain has more at play than staking rewards. That can shape how it votes.

Who should stake with Staking Facilities?

Staking Facilities suits SOL holders who want plain staking with a large, long-lived validator and a 0% headline rate. It also suits funds that want a named firm in Europe, a direct line to the team, or custom work.

It is a weaker fit in three cases:

• You want to spread stake to small validators. This one is among the largest on Solana.
• You want a liquid staking token to use in DeFi. Staking Facilities does not issue one.
• You want to see prices up front. The firm quotes for custom work on request only.

Staking with it works like any other stake. Open a wallet that lets you stake. Search the list for "Staking Facilities". Then choose how much SOL to stake. You can compare validators by commission and uptime on Solana Compass first.

Is Staking Facilities safe? Risks for delegators

Staking Facilities never holds your SOL, so the firm cannot move or lose your tokens. The risks lie in lost rewards and in how much stake sits in one place. Four are worth a look.

Downtime costs you rewards. Marinade logged four short outages for the main validator in the 90 days to early October 2026. Each lasted six minutes or less. On 15 August 2026 the validator missed 548 of its 6,392 block slots in one epoch, Marinade's log shows.

A lot of stake sits near it. About a third of all Solana stake was in Germany in October 2026, per Marinade. More than a quarter was in Frankfurt, where this validator runs. A fault in that region would hit many validators at once.

Fees can change. A validator can raise its commission when it likes. The 0% rate is a choice, not a promise. The 12% cut of all rewards that Marinade shows can move too.

The firm is private. Staking Facilities posts no audits of its setup and no accounts. We found no security badge or audit report on its website.

Alternatives to Staking Facilities for staking SOL

The closest rivals are other large staking firms that run Solana validators for funds and the public. They differ in their fees, in how much MEV they pass on, in where they run, and in which client they use.

If you care most about spreading stake, a small validator does more for the network than any top-20 one. If you want to use your SOL in DeFi while it earns, a liquid staking token does that. A plain stake does not.

Solana Compass, which publishes this page, also runs a Solana validator. That makes us a rival to Staking Facilities for your stake. You can see ours on our staking page.

Staking Facilities GmbH: team, Munich base and history

Staking Facilities GmbH began in Munich in 2017 and has run Solana validators since the network's test phase. The Solana Foundation's feature said the team joined the paid testnet "from the first day". The firm had six people then. It now reports more than 20.

That feature also said the firm helped found a staking working group with the European Blockchain Association.

In May 2026 Staking Facilities named Tomas Eminger as its tech chief (CTO). The firm said it was "building infrastructure for Internet Capital Markets". Solana teams use that phrase for trading and finance on a blockchain.

The firm stays close to the German crypto scene. It backed Solana Summit Germany in June 2026. It hosts a yearly meet-up in Munich called Blocktoberfest. It is also a sponsor of the TUM Blockchain Conference, held in Munich in late October 2026.